1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the art of liquid-dispensing tubes for use in filling containers such as whiskey bottles at high speed while reducing foaming and the need for recirculating the foam.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The whiskey distillery industry has employed liquid-dispensing tubes as part of automatic filling machines for filling the whiskey bottles at high rates of speed while controlling foaming and the need for recirculating the foam. One early patent is the Waxlax U.S. Pat. No. 3,741,263. This patent describes a liquid-dispensing tube of two-piece construction having relatively slideable concentric tubes. The center tube is a fixed vent tube that is inside the movable outer tube that is, in turn, urged downwardly by a coiled spring. The lower end of the filling tube is a hollow valve plug that has, at one end, an outlet port for liquid, and, at its opposite end, an inlet port for air. When the mouth of the bottle is raised around the lower end of the filling tube, it slides the filling tube up into the sleeve of the filling tank against the action of the spring. As the filling tube moves upwardly into the sleeve, the lower end of the tube uncovers the two ports in the hollow valve plug to allow liquid to pour out of the outlet port of the valve and into the bottle as the air is drawn upwardly through the inlet port.
The McLennand U.S. Pat. No. 3,805,856 describes a liquid-dispensing tube having a porous nozzle at its lower end secured to a filler tube. There is a central vertical filling tube that is surrounded by a concentric outer tube, the upper end of which is connected to means for producing a vacuum or suction within the tube. The patentable novelty appears to relate to the hollow, porous nozzle at the lower end of the tube which employs concentric inner and outer screens.
The Sanchis U.S. Pat. No. 2,885,127 relates to a device for dispensing liquids from a large bottle and particularly to an automatic liquid-dispensing device provided with a removable pin. This patent makes reference to transferring costly liquids from one large container into a smaller bottle, such as an eye drop bottle. This liquid-dispensing device is readily adjustable to varying heights of transfer bottles, such as eye drop bottles. The vertical movement of the pin causes the air inlet valve to open the air vent tube in order to allow air to enter the bottle through the air inlet port.
The Kelly U.S. Pat. No. 3,415,294 relates to a filling machine for introducing liquids into a container, while minimizing the formation of foam, comprising a plurality of relatively closely-spaced fine mesh screens at the discharge opening, whereby the effective head on the liquid is substantially reduced. In this manner, a higher head pressure can be used while the liquid at the discharge has a minimum of energy. This patent speaks of milk as the liquid that is being introduced into the containers.
The Schevey et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,279,279 relates to bottle-filling machines for chemicals that are used in semiconductor processing, where the chemicals must be available with extremely low particulate contamination counts. The invention of this patent relates to apparatus for automatically filling bottles with high purity liquid without either mechanical moving parts over the bottle openings or contact between the filler head or associated structures and the bottle, either of which can generate particulate contamination which falls into the bottle.
The Picut U.S. Pat. No. 2,482,867 relates to a liquid-dispensing device having a spring-closed valve and a vent pipe having a spring-closed closure, which vent valve closure is opened when the discharge valve is opened, thereby allowing the discharge of liquid into a receptacle until the liquid level in the receptacle rises above the lower end of the vent pipe.